sebi

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) announced on Thursday that three issuers raised a total of 102.5 million rupees (approximately 10.72 million USD) through its Demat 2 pilot program by issuing tokenized corporate bonds. This pilot utilizes distributed ledger technology to issue, hold, and settle corporate bonds.REC Ltd. was the first to issue on September 7, raising 50 million rupees (approximately 5.23 million USD) from 18 investors; L&T Ltd. raised a similar amount from 4 investors on September 9, and IIFL raised 25 million rupees (approximately 2.6 million USD) from 1 investor on the same day. SEBI stated that the pilot infrastructure records corporate bonds in the form of native digital tokens on a distributed ledger owned by the depository and achieves atomic settlement of bonds and funds through a unified market interface connected to the Reserve Bank of India’s wholesale central bank digital currency.This mechanism can reduce settlement risks arising from the separation of securities and funds transfer, allowing issuers to receive funds on the same day as the bidding, whereas the existing process typically takes two to three days. The regulator noted that the information of bondholders on the shared ledger is instantly visible to all authorized entities, and at maturity, e₹ payments will go directly into the bondholders' central bank digital currency wallets. SEBI clarified that this pilot does not create a new category of corporate bonds; tokenized bonds retain the same ISIN, issuer obligations, coupon, maturity, covenants, ratings, and investor rights as traditional paperless bonds. The pilot will be implemented in three phases, with the first phase covering institutional issuance, while secondary trading and retail access will be conducted in subsequent phases within SEBI's regulatory sandbox.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) launched the Demat 2 pilot this week, issuing corporate bonds in the form of digital tokens on a distributed ledger operated by regulated market institutions, and settling through the wholesale digital rupee of the Reserve Bank of India. The size of India's corporate bond market is approximately $620 billion.The state-owned power financing institution REC raised ₹50 billion (approximately $56 million) through this system, engineering and construction giant Larsen & Toubro refinanced ₹50 billion, and non-banking financial institution IIFL Finance raised ₹2.5 billion (approximately $2.8 million), totaling around ₹102.5 billion. The bonds retain fixed interest rates, maturity dates, and investor rights, but the tokenized bonds can be settled simultaneously with the digital rupees used for purchase, thereby reducing transaction risk.Subsequent phases will introduce smart contracts to handle corporate actions such as interest payments and redemptions, and there are plans to open secondary market trading, ultimately allowing retail investors to participate. India maintains a cautious attitude towards private cryptocurrencies, and this pilot is an attempt to introduce tokenization into its controlled financial system.